The present invention generally relates to a locking device for securing machinery while workers perform maintenance on the machinery. More particularly, the present invention relates to a plastic lockout safety hasp that a technician may connect to a corresponding safety hasp on the machinery to prevent access to operational controls of the machinery while the technician works on the machinery.
In the case of large machines, for example, energy sources, assembly and maintenance of the machines requires the work of several different kinds of technicians at any one time. A large energy machine may have electricians, pipe fitters, welders, and outside contractors all working on the machine at the same time. The machine typically has a safety device that prevents access to operational controls on the machine. The safety device has a lockout hasp that may be secured by the technicians such that individuals do not have access to the operational controls on the machine.
There are a number of conventional lockout hasps that are used to secure machinery. Typically, a lockout hasp is made of metal, such as steel or aluminum, and has a body that receives a shackle therein. In operation, the shackle is extended through a lockout feature on the safety device of the machine and then secured within the body to prevent access to the machine's operational controls. The body has a number of apertures that may receive a technician's personal padlock such that the shackle is locked in the body and thus cannot be removed from the lockout feature on the machine.
Each individual technician that is working on the machine has a padlock that he or she secures about the lockout hasp such that the lockout hasp is locked about the safety device to prevent access to the operational controls. Because the lockout hasp is structured to accommodate multiple padlocks, several technicians may secure their padlocks to the lockout hasp at any one time. Thus, by securing the lockout hasp with his or her own padlock, each individual technician is able to safely work on the machine without another individual coming along and operating the machine. Additionally, a shop may use lockout hasps having different colors in order to indicate which technicians are working on a particular part of the machine. For example, a shop may assign red hasps to electricians, blue hasps to pipe-fitters, yellow hasps to gas line workers, etc. When each technician is done working on the machine, the technician unlocks his or her padlock from the lockout hasp. Thus, all the technicians on the job have to remove their padlocks from the lockout hasp before the machine may be operated.
The typical lockout hasp suffers from several drawbacks. Because most lockout hasps are made of metal, the lockout hasps must go through a number of different expensive processes during production. For example, the lockout hasp may have to be cast, welded, machined, and undergo metal finishing processes. Additionally, coloring a metal hasp during production is costly and involves another production step. Therefore, manufacturing metal lockout hasps is expensive and time-consuming. Additionally, while some lockout hasps have been made of nylon, the nylon hasps have a thin diameter and may easily be cut off of the machine with wire cutters or even scissors. Because the typical nylon lockout hasp may be so easily disengaged from the machine, it does not provide an adequately safe work environment for a technician working on a machine.
Thus a need exists for a lockout hasp that is inexpensive and simple to manufacture and yet is also strong enough to provide adequate protection to a technician who secures the hasp to a machine.